Congress won’t like this. Insufficient opportunities for graft.
Note the implicit acknowledgement that they’re going to be using Falcons.
4 thoughts on “The RD-180 Replacement”
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Congress won’t like this. Insufficient opportunities for graft.
Note the implicit acknowledgement that they’re going to be using Falcons.
Comments are closed.
Perhaps someone at the Pentagon takes their oath seriously?
Maybe someone at the Pentagon doesn’t feel inclined to give ULA and Aerojet yet another billion dollar handout.
More Aerojet than ULA. ULA seems to have thrown Aerojet under the bus with the Blue Origin deal.
Switching to Blue Origin’s engines will require a complete redesign of the Atlas. It won’t be an Atlas V any more. While the new engines look good on paper and potentially will be available sooner than AJ-1s, we’ll have to see if Blue Origin can deliver on time. Look at the certification process that SpaceX is going through. With a new rocket, ULA will have to do the same thing. Who will pay for those verification launches? Or does ULA expect that those certification requirements (that they never had to meet) will be waived?